Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus that is capable of ensuring a high security level, a method of controlling the image forming apparatus, an information processing apparatus, a method of controlling the information processing apparatus, and a storage medium.
Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there has been known an image forming apparatus that performs a secure print job as a print job (see e.g. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2015-037879). The secure print job is a print job requiring a high security level, and is performed e.g. when printing print data including confidential information. More specifically, a user instructs an image forming apparatus to perform a secure print job from a PC connected to the image forming apparatus. In doing this, job authentication information formed by an ID and a password, which is necessary for execution of the secure print job, is set in the secure print job. The image forming apparatus receives the secure print job, and reserves the received secure print job in a storage device, such as an HDD, provided in the image forming apparatus. After that, the user moves to the image forming apparatus, and directly instructs the image forming apparatus to execute the reserved secure print job via a console section provided on the image forming apparatus. The image forming apparatus instructed to execute the secure print job requests the user to input the job authentication information, and when the job authentication information input by the user matches the job authentication information set in the secure print job, the image forming apparatus executes the secure print job.
Incidentally, the image forming apparatus performs not only a secure print job, but also a print job other than the secure print job (hereinafter referred to as the “normal job”), which requires no job authentication information. In the case of an image forming apparatus which is not equipped with a user authentication function for requesting a user to perform user authentication by login before using the image forming apparatus, when a normal job is received, the received normal job is immediately executed. Further, even with an image forming apparatus equipped with the user authentication function, if the user authentication function has not been enabled, when a normal job is received, the received normal job is immediately executed.
Under such circumstances, however, there is a case where a user erroneously prints print data by a normal print job, which should be printed as a secure print job high in security level. More specifically, there is a case where a user intends to instruct the image forming apparatus to perform a secure print job from a PC, but erroneously instructs the image forming apparatus to execute a normal job from the PC. In this case, the image forming apparatus instructed to execute the normal job immediately executes the print job as mentioned above, and a printing result is immediately discharged from the image forming apparatus. On the other hand, the user does not notice that he/she has erroneously instructed the image forming apparatus to execute the normal job, and assumes that the secure print job is reserved in the image forming apparatus, and hence the user does not immediately collect the printing result from the image forming apparatus. As a result, the printing result to be handled with high security is left on a discharge tray, for example, of the image forming apparatus for a while, causing a problem that a high security level cannot be ensured for the printing result.